Google Search

Section 29.9 Google Search

Note: as of 2022-10-27 we have search supported by an online service from Google and a client-side (“native”)version supported by Javascript (Section 29.8). Development and support will favor the latter.

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Search facilities can be enabled through Google Custom Search Engine

cse.google.com/cse

. Please, please report any discrepancies in the following instructions as the setup interface at Google changes out from underneath us. These instructions have been updated as of 2020-10-01.

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Besides being useful for search facilities, setting up a search engine might be a good way to alert Google of something newly available, and initiate your book’s rise up the search results rankings.

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List 29.9.1. Configuring Google Custom Search

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Create an account with Google (GMail, YouTube, etc.) and make sure you are signed in.
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Visit GCSE
²
cse.google.com/cse
and add a new search engine via New Search Engine.
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Provide a URL for the top-level domain name/directory for your book/document. Everything below this will be indexed. We have taken some care to mark knowl content in a way compatible with the search facility, but there is more work to do here.
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Give the engine a GCSE-specific name, so you can tell later which one it is when you have several.
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Under Edit Search Engine in the Basics tab locate Search engine ID which has a string that uniquely identifies your new search engine. Save this, you’ll need to make it part of your PreTeXt document.
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Under the Users tab add co-authors or trusted backup personnel.
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Fiddle with Edit Search Engine > Look and Feel at your own risk! Only the defaults are tested and supported.
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Provisions for removing advertisements for non-profit sites seem to have changed. If your university already contracts with Google, you should investigate having a “SuperAdmin” at your institution so this setup for you, and make you a trusted collaborator. Then it should be an easy matter to turn off advertisements.
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List 29.9.2. Configuring PreTeXt for Google Search

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Because these sign-ups are dependent on your site, this is a publisher activity, and hence configured with the publication file (Section 26.1), see Subsection 44.4.13 for details.
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The Search engine ID you saved from above is referenced in Google’s code as a cx number. An example looks like 482cf73dc05bed674 (older examples looked like 002673997130187229905:qjo2y0jplyu). In which case your publication file would have an element under html like
```
<search google-cx="482cf73dc05bed674"/>
```
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The search/@google-cx attribute will alert the PreTeXt conversion and fully enable and implement search. You are done, and everything should just work. You should see a Google-branded search box to the top right of each of your pages. (We have no control over the branding.)
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Time to rebuild your HTML output and make the improved version available.
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